PART ONE
Grounding comes from
the solid contact we make with the earth, especially with our feet and
legs. It is rooted in sensation,
feeling, action and the solidity of the material world. Grounding provides a connection that makes us
feel safe, alive, centered in our selves, and rooted in our environment.
Childhood traumas,
cultural conditioning, limited belief systems, restrictive or exhausting
habits, physical and emotional injuries, or even just lack of attention all
continue to chakra blockages.
Difficulties abound in life, and for each one, we develop a coping
strategy. When difficulties persist,
these coping strategies become chronic patterns, anchored in the body and
psyche as defense mechanisms.
Excessive chakras
over compensate for loss or damage by focusing excessively on that issue --
usually in a dysfunctional way that fails to heal the loss.
Emotional identity
expands the experience of the body and gives it dimension and texture,
connecting us to the flow of the world.
The purpose of the
crown chakra, meditation, and indeed, of most spiritual disciplines, is to
break through the bonding with the smaller identities and to achieve
realization of the universal identity.
This does not deny the reality of the smaller identities; it just means
that we see them as part of a unified and integrated whole.
Separated from the
experience of our bodies, we are separated from our aliveness, from the
experience of the natural world, and from our most basic inner truth.
Disconnected from
our body, our actions become compulsive -- no longer ruled by consciousness or
rooted in feelings, but fueled by an unconscious urge to bridge the gap between
mind and body at whatever cost.
Dissociation
produces dangerously disconnected actions.
Without the body as
a unifying figure of existence, we become fragmented. We repress our aliveness
and become machinelike, easily manipulated. We lose our testing ground for
truth.
Healing the split
between mind and body is a necessary step in the healing of us all. It heals our home, our foundation, and the
base upon which all else is built.
Scared is what
happens when the sacred gets scrambled.
To combat fear is to
strengthen the first chakra.
Fear must be
understood. Where did it come from? How did it serve you? Understanding is not
enough, however, because the fear response is still lodged in the body. The next step is to release and integrate the
instinctual responses to the fear. Does
it make you want to run and hide? Does it make you angry and activated or
paralyzed and confused? Allowing the
body to express these responses helps complete the gestalt of the response to
the original trauma.
Fear is a belief
that something awful might happen, while faith is a belief that something good
will happen.
When we are
grounded, we can be present, focused, dynamic.
Trust or mistrust is
the basic element of your first chakra program.
Which is a foundation for all the other programs that follow.
Trust enables your
body to unfold from its cramped position, allows security and calm, and
encourages connection, bonding, and exploration.
The first chakra
program is preverbal, preconceptual, reflexive, and instinctual.
As the parent was to
the child, so the mind is to the body.
Crisis puts us
repeatedly in a state of survival.
Bodily dissociation
may make one accident-prone, where edges, boundaries, and dangers are not
noticed.
A person with an
accelerated upward current is hypervigilant to messages outside of herself, as
if constantly searching for ways to connect with her caretaker or constantly
watching for danger. This is the hallmark of a deficient first chakra: the body is deadened and the consciousness is
elevated, creating a profound mind-body split.
